One of my all-time favorite books is Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting. And the first paragraph in that book absolutely captures, perfectly describes, the first week of August!
The first week of August hangs at the very top of summer, the top of the live-long year, like the highest seat of a Ferris wheel when it pauses in its turning.
The weeks that come before are only a climb from balmy spring, and those that follow a drop to the chill of autumn, but the first week of August is motionless, and hot. It is curiously silent, too, with blank white dawns and glaring noons, and sunsets smeared with too much color. Often at night there is lightning, but it quivers all alone. There is no thunder, no relieving rain. These are strange and breathless days, the dog days, when people are led to do things they are sure to be sorry for after.
Don’t you agree?
A Fondness For Reading 
I have never been able to bring myself to read it. 😦
August is as different from July as it can be. “Like a summer with a thousand Julys”. There is a melancholy about August for me. All the beauty of July is fading, but at least this year it is NOT dry. We’ve had the best rain for many summers. Really your kind of weather. Such a relief to see the bushes grown much bigger this year, and the flowers have been beautiful. But now we ease into fall, though many weeks off. Late August into September I really do like.
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It’s not my favorite of her books, Nan. That would be “The Eyes of the Amaryllis.” But she is a wonderful writer, and I love reading her descriptions. They’re very lyrical!
You’ve had our Pacific Northwest moisture, for sure. We are as dry as a bone here. The lawns are completely dormant, and I’m spending a couple of hours each morning watering to keep things alive! Have you also had a lot of the smoke from the Canadian fires?
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I get very uneasy without rain. A friend of mine was in Washington state and said the lawns were yellow. She wasn’t upset because she can’t live without sun. Me, I like the sun, but I can’t live without rain and green and lush flowers! Aren’t people just so interesting. :<))
I am way off about the book. I just read a description. The book I was thinking about is not this one, and also the wrong author, I think. I'm thinking of the one where there are two children and one dies. That is the one I couldn't read. I guess I've been away from children's literature for too long!!
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Nan, I miss the rain. It calms me down, so I don’t mind when there’s lots of it. I’m not sure which book you were thinking of, but it would be too hard for me to read, too. Right now I’m choosing kind and gentle reads.
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I love this description of August. It evokes many memories of childhood days spent outside exploring, playing, feeling the boredom that comes at the end of summer vacation. I find it sad that our schools are back in session in early August and missing the “top of the live-long year.”
Maybe Nan was referring to The Bridge to Terebithia. I did read it once but never revisited it.
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Marlo, I think you’re right about the book. I, too, read Bridge to Terabithia, a long time ago and have never reread it. I can’t believe your schools are back in session! I really hope they are air conditioned! Our schools have always started at the end of August, and those first two weeks, when I was teaching, were miserably hot. Afternoons were painful!
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